Gender diversity in business: the 7 taboos you need to know

Since January 27, 2011 and the Copé-Zimmerman law aimed at promoting professional equality between men and women, more and more companies are taking this subject head-on. In particular by taking care to support, on the one hand, female talents by ensuring that they are in promotion plans, and on the other hand, managers and managers to raise their awareness of the subject through training on stereotypes, biases and the management of diversity.

Despite these initiatives, there are still taboos around these topics that are not often discussed in companies. What if we talked a little bit about the blockages, beliefs, beliefs that no one talks about, but that everyone hears out loud, or very low, under the carpet in companies?

At Talentis, we have identified 7 taboos concerning the subject of mixed F/H in companies. Here they are:

Taboo No. 1: positive discrimination.

The first taboo is the concept of positive discrimination. All companies that want to succeed in the challenge of diversity set clear objectives in terms of results or in terms of progress. Despite their proven effectiveness, these measures are still too often described as positive discrimination.

Taboo no. 2: there are fewer opportunities for men than before.

Certainly, if we do a quick calculation of how many women, in percentage and in volume, we must name in order to achieve parity or a little more diversity at each stage, perhaps we will see that there are slightly fewer opportunities than before for men. What if we said it the other way around: there are more opportunities for women. That is to say, instead of having a four out of five chance of being promoted, men will only have a two out of four chance of being promoted. We are going to say that we are going back to the norm, that is true equality.

Taboo #3: promoted women are promoted only because of their gender.

It's true that businesses have so much time and money and such extraordinary results that they have time to appoint incompetent people to strategic positions! This is wrong, if people are appointed, men or women, it is primarily because they are good and have the potential to succeed in their new position.

Whether you are a man or a woman, there is always a one in three chance of not succeeding (30% of managerial positions end in failure in less than 2 years).

Taboo no. 4: to achieve parity, all we do is add a few chairs for women.

What can we do to improve parity in management committees? It's very simple, we're going to add chairs. For example, if we have 12 men in a Comex of 12, we will simply expand this group, add 4 women and that will make a Comex of 16 people with 4 women, or 25%. It looks very nice in the photo. Businesses that use this process should simply recognize it openly. It is not a shame to try to make progress in this way. This makes it possible to open up the subject of diversity around these circles of influence and management in order to gradually “accustom” the system to parity. The problem with this process is that it keeps a small hidden side that is annoying.

Taboo No. 5: the numbers given are not the right ones.

Today, we know that more and more companies are trying to count, to disguise the numbers in terms of promotions, departures, appointments. It is quite painful and it does not make progress not to be completely transparent in terms of gender figures at all levels of organizations. The more transparency we play, the more we will have the trust of the teams, the trust of the customers, the confidence of the service providers in our true honest desire to improve the diversity of the teams.

Taboo #6: pretending to be interested in the subject.

Some individuals, especially men, will give the impression of going to listen to conferences on stereotypes, of coming wisely to training, but behind the back, they will say to themselves: “Guys, we support each other.” We hear these sentences very often and that's frankly a shame! If they are not happy, let them say it openly! It is up to the HRDs and the sponsors of these mixed programs to take an interest in these rumours.

Taboo no. 7: groups of men openly committed against gender diversity.

The seventh taboo is actually talking openly about groups of men who do not hide being against gender diversity or parity in companies. These groups exist, we hear them. At Talentis we see them but it's still taboo in the sense that we don't put them forward by saying: “There is a problem, you have to go and work with these people who are clearly against gender diversity. And that's a problem.” That is to say, in order to move towards diversity, you have to find the detractors and work with them rather than putting it under the carpet by saying: “It doesn't exist.”

To move towards more gender diversity in the company, we must of course work on all the levers we have already talked about — dashboard, training, coaching, manager education — but we must also talk about taboos and not only about biases and stereotypes. You have to remove taboos, discuss annoying topics, put them on the table in order to move forward.

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